| When first
entered by settlers. this territory was included in Hancock and
Kennebec counties, but when (in 1809) Somerset County was
incorporated, the western portion, amounting to three tiers of
townships, was embraced in this new county. In 1816, Penobscot
County was incorporated, and all but the three western tiers of
townships above mentioned were included in that county. In 1838,
Piscataquis County was incorporated, taking four tiers of
townships from Penobscot, and three from Somerset county,—the
most western tier being included in the Bingham purchase. It
then extended in full width to Canada, but in 1844 its northern
portion, embracing about 60 townships, was annexed to Aroostook
County. In its present extent it contains more than 100 full
townships, with an area of 3,780 square miles. The townships are
generally 6 miles square, lying in regular ranges; the latter
was numbered from the north line of the Waldo patent (now
constituting a part of the north line of Waldo County) the
southern tier in Piscataqius County being the sixth range in
this enumeration. In its length north and, south, it includes 16
townships, and in its width, 7. Nearly two-thirds of these
townships arc now covered with forests, and wholly unoccupied,
except by the lumber men in their annual pursuit of logs.
The most important river is the
Piscataquis, which gives its name to the county, and upon which
the first settlements were made. The pioneer settler of
Piscataquis County was Eli Towne, who moved his family from
Temple, N. H., into Dover in 1803. Sebec was the first town
incorporated in the county, the act having been passed February
28, 1812. The next was Foxcroft, which was incorporated on
February 29, 1812. Dover, though the first settled, was not
incorporated until 1822.
The principal occurrences of wide-spread effect in the county
were the cold seasons of 1815 and the following year, when the
crops suffered to such an extent as to produce great
hardship,—and the great fires of 1825, which began in August and
continued until the middle of October, in which much timber land
and quite a number of dwellings were destroyed.
The only railroad in the county is the Bangor and Piscataquis
railway, chartered from Oldtown to Moosehead Lake. The
Piscataquis Observer, is the only paper in the county. It was
started in 1838 by George V. Edes as the Piscataquis Herald, but
this was changed to the Piscataquis Farmer, from this in 1848 to
its present name. The present proprietor is Mr. S. D. Edes, who
still maintains its character as an excellent county paper. In
the war of the Rebellion, Piscataquis County furnished its full
proportion of gallant soldiers who did battle for the Union.
Colonel C. S. Douty. and Major C. P. Chandler, of our fallen
heroes, were natives of Piscataquis County.
The public schoolhouses of the county number 140, valued at
$44,200. The valuation in 1870 was $4,845,880; in 1880,
$3,342,236. The number of polls at the same date was 3,355. The
population, according to the census of 1880, was 14,873. Of
these, 7,715 were males, 7,158 females. The natives numbered
14,247; the foreign born, 626; the colored, 54.
Source: Varney, George J., Gazetteer of the
State of Maine. Boston: B. B. Russell, 1886.
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